| Building Schools for the Future |
| Sunday, 13 July 2008 | |
|
Adjournment Debate: Building Schools for the Future Tues 8th July, John Pugh The Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme is a government initiative aiming to promote a change in the quality of the nation's educational provision and is the biggest single government investment in improving school buildings for over 50 years. BSF is a 10-15 year programme aimed at re-building and renewing school facilities so that every secondary school in England has 21st Century facilities. Dr Pugh argues that arrangements in place to implement the programme are unsatisfactory. Speaking in the debate he says: "No one can be against Building Schools for the Future as an investment or an idea, but we can be against rushed-through plans, secrecy, a lack of financial clarity, uncertainty, financial dependence and unquantified costs. Those are things that it is probably worth being against, if we are in favour of investment in school building and refurbishment. "Governments and local government historically find it easier to deliver infrastructure than educational improvement. That is the general conclusion that I have reached after many years of thinking about how we develop the education system. One thing that definitely hampers educational improvement is uncertainty and upheaval. " Getting schools to run well is by no means easy; it is no mean trick. Disruption in school life, on the other hand, is relatively easy; it can be dealt with by something as simple and straightforward as the change of a headmaster. School systems, when they run well, need to be well looked after. What I would like the Minister to do in his response is lay out on a national and local basis—perhaps even to the level of what is happening in Sefton—where we are now, and what we can expect next." Video of full speech FreeVideoCoding.com Get the full text of the speech here. More about Adjournment debates can be found here . |